When I was a teenager, my friends and I were not normal. Not at all. We weren't cheerleaders, we didn't have boyfriends, we never got invited to parties. Maybe it's more fair to say we were geeks, outcasts, outsiders looking in at the ever-spinning wheel of popularity. Occasionally one of us would try to break through the invisible walls surrounding the popular group, only to be firmly rebuffed.
So, we developed a rebel attitude. We were just going to be our own group. We called ourselves The Fun Bunch. We made membership cards on my computer. They said, "License to practice insanity" on them. And we had a great time together. When a new kid joined the school, we befriended him. He fit right in. I think he might have been a little scared to say no to us.
My question here is, why was it so important to us to be seen as normal? And when that didn't work, why was it even more important that we be seen as crazy? We are not the same, we are different. We may be crazy. Watch out.
Well, I have good news for my high school friends. We are different. Every one of us is different from every other one. How's this for crazy: God knows exactly how many hairs are on my head. And when I'm still losing hair as an after-effect of childbirth, that's saying something; the count probably changes by the minute. Maybe what's really crazy is trying to fit in to the extreme that you lose yourself. We should celebrate what makes us different instead of trying to be like everybody else. I know I'm unique, and not just in name (though I'm pretty sure I'm the only Jana ____ in the world).
There has never been, and there will never be, anyone just like you, either. How's that for crazy?
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